Brion Vibber wrote:
In many cases these are patches for a bug, in which case bugzilla is a good place to stash an updated patch version to be looked over. (In a DVCS workflow this might be a branch on a fork rather than a flat patch, but the principle is the same and we *ought* to be able to do ok with patches -- 20+ years of free/open source devs have reviewed, iterated, and landed or clearly rejected changes this way, including us!)
Someone uploads a patch to Bugzilla and doesn't use IRC (and so they can't nag for review there). What's your recommendation for that scenario? This mailing list? If so, is there a concern about diffused responsibility?
I haven't seen many requests for patch review on this list in the past, as far as I remember. A separate list or a direct line to the Bugmeister might make more sense, though in an ideal world, people wouldn't need to nag at all...
The reality is that uploading a patch on Bugzilla should be sufficient to trigger review. At that point, the uploader has put in his or her share of the work. But very often uploading a patch or even prodding in bug comments leads to no response at all for months or years or ever. Sometimes you'll get lucky and someone on the CC list will be able to help you (or find someone to help you). Or you'll get lucky and someone will notice the bug in #mediawiki and take an interest. It's a crapshoot, though. And it seems to me that a lot of the people who commit patches are the same people who don't use IRC or don't know who to nag if they do.
I'm not trying to be negative here, though it may come off that way. I'm just trying to understand how people are supposed to be able to help currently and going forward.
MZMcBride